Voice of Hope?

I don’t do a good job of following a Bible reading plan. I have to start at the beginning (Genesis) and just read it through. I know that sounds crazy but if I don’t do that, I lose interest. I feel like there is a purpose to the story and the order its in so I want to see how it plays out.

That leads me to be reading in the book of Jeremiah right now. Not your whimsical book for the holiday season. Jeremiah is tough.

I’ve read this book before, but something that struck me this time through was this: Jeremiah was a voice of hope to the people in his time. He was this voice of hope but it didn’t sound that way at the time. Here is how he sounded: “Hey you, all of you. You are all living a life that will lead to your destruction. All of you and your children will be destroyed. Those of you who survive will be hauled off to a foreign land and you won’t ever see your homes again. And it’s your fault, you’ve chosen this for yourselves.”

That wouldn’t make a very good greeting card would it? But it’s still a message of hope. The only way to have hope is to have Jesus, to know God. Without Him, there is little to hope in. Jeremiah was right even though it sounded a bit harsh.

It is easy for us to get caught up in the what we want, especially in this season of excess. Our hope though isn’t in what we can see. Stuff isn’t going to set us free from the things that bring us down in this season. We’ve tried stuff, we keep trying stuff and we are still not satisfied.

We strive to be a voice of real hope. To speak of Christ and His plan of salvation for the world. You can’t see Him. You can’t take Him home and watch football on Him, but He is the hope we are missing.

Will you be a voice of hope this season?